


(love is not a victory march)

by crownedcarl



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Gen, Psychological Horror, Unresolved Sexual Tension, vague allusions to past Nathan/Peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 21:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8862904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/pseuds/crownedcarl
Summary: "What lives in there?"
Sylar shrugs. "Something dark. Leave it alone, Peter."





	

**Author's Note:**

> wallverse fic. yea.
> 
> warnings for ... psychological horror, mild incestuous content & guys being dudes.
> 
> title from hallelujah by leonard cohen.

Sylar’s head is nothing like Peter expected it to be.

If the landscape of the dream was constructed by Matt, Peter thinks that he went to great lengths to isolate Sylar in a world entirely devoid of life. The empty streets, the uninhabited houses… Peter’s first thought is that it looks like every living thing in the city got up and walked out in an orderly fashion, but there are no signs that anyone or anything has ever lived there.

There are no cars left with the engines running, no doors left standing open on their hinges; once Peter searches the immediate area more thoroughly, he concludes that nothing exists here except for Sylar, and now him.

The dread that clenches in his stomach is sickening. It makes him think he shouldn’t be here. It’s an odd feeling, fearing what he might encounter in the recesses of Sylar’s mind, but that doesn’t make the deep-seated feeling of doom any easier to deal with.

First things first: Peter has to find Sylar before he does anything else, but where does he _start?_

-

The confrontation with Sylar doesn’t end up going at all how Peter expected. Sylar has always been a unique brand of predictable; seeing him turn tail and run is unfamiliar. Even his threats don’t sound as venomous as Peter expected them to, which means that something is wrong.

Sylar has been in here for half a day; how traumatic could that possibly have been? Traumatic enough to render him a ghost of his old self?

Peter never thought he’d live to see the day where he’d wish for Sylar’s cruelty and bloodlust back, but here he is. Strange, he thinks, how things change, how _people_ change.

Peter can't remember ever seeing Sylar scared. The man never seemed to possess the ability for fear; maybe that's what's prompted this cowardice, running and hiding in an empty city from the one person who's trying to save him.

For one furious moment, Peter considers getting the hell out of there and leaving Sylar to his insanity and isolation, but then he thinks of his dreams and how instrumental Sylar is in saving Emma. He has to remember what he's here for. Otherwise, Sylar has already won.

Sylar doesn’t want to talk? Too bad. Peter is going to hunt him down and corner him one way or another. He’ll drag Sylar back to the real world kicking and screaming if that’s what it takes, because Peter needs him. That’s what it comes down to.

For once, he’s ready and willing to face off against Sylar; this time, it’s on Peter’s terms. He decides where they go from here..

-

He hadn’t counted on Sylar being this way, is the thing. Peter hadn’t anticipated Sylar looking at him and saying things that only Nathan would ever say to him, sacred sentiments from their childhood being spilled from that unworthy, sneering mouth. The first time that Sylar looks at him and drags up memories of a past he never partook in, Peter wants to scream.

“Don’t,” is what he says instead, spitting the word like acid. “Don’t you _ever_ do that again.”

But Sylar doesn’t stop. Sylar isn’t Nathan and Peter hates him for it.

Nathan would have understood. He’d have pushed and then relented, because that’s always been how they are, how they _were_. One of them would push and the other would give and maybe they’d resent each other for it, a little bit, but there was an understanding between them that Sylar can’t comprehend. He’s a fake, a shadow; he doesn’t know a thing about what Nathan meant to Peter, not a goddamn thing.

The first week in Sylar’s head is spent avoiding him, after that disastrous conversation, after Peter hit Sylar so hard he was sure something had to have ended up broken. He never meant to get involved on this level, but Sylar makes him uncomfortable, makes him angry, and Peter wants _out_. He wants to go home.

He has nowhere to go, though. Avoiding Sylar doesn't get him anywhere, but being around the man that dared to wear Nathan's face, the man that’ll use his most treasured memories against him-? It's intolerable. Peter wanted to rip Sylar to shreds the first time he reached within whatever remained of Nathan and brought back events that should've been left in the past.

He loved you, Peter. He loved you wholeheartedly, Peter. Sylar says these things and all Peter can do is clench his jaw and hope that he leaves a sizable bruise on Sylar's when he punches him, again and again, because Sylar won’t stop pretending.

Avoiding him isn't the long-term plan, but what else has Peter got? Willingly spending eternity in Sylar's presence isn't ideal, but even Peter gets lonely. It isn't quite crawling back, the thing that he does when he enters Sylar's apartment, almost daring him to comment.

The apartment is sparsely furnished. There's a room five floors below, in the basement, that smells like death and decay. He finds it when he’s walking around aimlessly, looking for somewhere to go and something to do, and the red steel door beckons to him, as if it’s whispering his name. Peter never meant to find it, but now he's curious, demanding answers. There's little else to do other than pry.

Sylar won't talk about it. He says nothing until Peter marches down there, throwing the door open to grab the first little trinket he spots, which turns out to be a broken hourglass, huge in his palm. Shoving it in front of Sylar's face, Peter is slowly made aware of all the dried blood coating the shiny glass casing.

"For someone who hates me getting into their head - or, rather, Nathan's," Sylar murmurs, "You're awfully comfortable snooping around in _mine_."

Peter doesn’t retort, crossing his arms and staring Sylar down. What will it take to make him _crack_ , he wonders? 

"What is that room? What are all of those _things?_ "

And, abruptly, Peter realizes what he's staring at before Sylar has the time to lie to him. Those possessions, dusty and hidden away, are the things Sylar doesn't like about himself, so he put all of the ugly in a dark room and tried not to look at it. It figures. It isn’t remorse that’s driven Sylar into this exile. It’s _shame_.

Peter remembers the smell, the fleshy texture of the walls, the bone-like protrusions acting as makeshift hooks. They looked like human ribs. 

"What _lives_ in there?"

Sylar shrugs. "Something dark. Leave it alone, Peter."

-

Maybe Peter has been here before.

There's something eerily familiar about Sylar's home, the place where he lays his head down to rest. The apartment is stunningly neat, and Peter feels a shiver overtake him every time he walks across the threshold, as if some invisible entity is saying _welcome back, we’ve been waiting for you_.

It gives him the creeps. Sylar doesn't comment on it, but then again, he wouldn't. He sits quietly in the armchair by the window and reads his worn, dog-eared books day in and day out.

Peter doesn't feel sorry for him. He likes to pretend so, at least.

Sylar is a sickness, a disease, the first horseman of the apocalypse spreading his madness. Peter could laugh himself sick, imagining Sylar's supposed rehabilitation happening while Peter is the one slowly losing his mind.

Maybe they're both sick. Sylar does, after all, keep insisting that they have more in common than Peter knows about. Does he mean the good or the bad, then?

"Stop talking," Peter demands, back turned to Sylar as he lies curled up on the couch. "I'm nothing like you."

"Maybe," Sylar allows. "Maybe that’s because you're entirely like me."

Despite his vehement denial, that sentiment keeps Peter from sleeping that night, and plenty of nights after that. At the very least, he reasons with himself, he won't have to suffer any more dark, foreboding dreams. He's grown tired of rooms with gaping mouths, swallowing him whole.

-

Sylar's secrets are too tempting to leave alone.

Peter wants to understand him. For all his supposed empathy, he's never been able to see the reasoning behind Sylar's mad quest for power, same way that he can't understand Sylar's bottomless remorse, here and now. Where does that leave him? Tormented by the past, unable to forgive himself, made a martyr? 

Being locked away for eternity sounds awful. Peter might lose himself if he doesn't tread carefully.

Sylar disappears for hours at a time, sometimes, leaving Peter alone in the apartment. He can't resist the freedom: in the second hour of Sylar's absence, Peter descends the stairs into the basement.

The red door opens with an unholy shriek. As Peter stands just inside the threshold, he can see how the room stretches endlessly ahead of him, dark and twisted and alive.

It reminds Peter of a time capsule, once he takes a good look around; Sylar’s memories buried for so long it's hard to make sense of them,the passage of time having rendered the images blurry and indistinct. 

The clocks on the walls are badly put together and disjointed, none of them ticking in sync, but what draws Peter’s eye is this: there's a body on the floor, blood pooling on the rug. Peter steps fully inside, trying not to flinch as the door clicks shut behind him.

Sylar must keep this room hidden for a reason, but in all honesty, Peter was expecting a lot worse than a corpse. He was expecting a mass grave..

Peter touches the wall and feels how it lurches beneath his hand; withdrawing in disgust, he takes another step, further inside. It feels like a haunted house, wondering what’s waiting for him at the very end.

There's something about this place, something terrible and malignant beneath the floorboards. 

A narrow hallway later, into another room, and Peter finds the shrine, mesmerized by it. These walls are dead; no roiling, no black blood trickling down, but the walls in here are painted with frenzied words, confessions and pleas of forgiveness scrawled on the brick. It makes Peter sick to see it.

Is this Sylar's deepest shame? Is this room the embodiment of something true, something regretful? Peter doesn't know what to think anymore, after all the time spent challenging Sylar and refusing to believe he’s different..

He doesn't understand why Sylar would go to such great lengths in his attempts at purging himself of all his past crimes and misdeeds; Peter doesn't _want_ to understand, because that would mean that he believes, deep down, that Sylar can be changed. That he can be forgiven.

That he can be saved.

-

Sylar is quiet and contemplative, in the big armchair by the window, for once letting Peter have his silence without making numerous attempts at conversation. It’s morbidly funny, in a way, realizing he’s pushed Sylar into giving up.

But it nags at him. For all that he wants Sylar to keep his mouth shut, the sudden silence makes Peter hyper aware of him, studying Sylar and the space he takes up in the sparsely furnished room.

They've been here for months and they're no closer to breaking out. Peter has no way to tell the time and refuses to ask Sylar, because sometimes he'll look at Peter the way Nathan used to and that heavy gaze disgusts and comforts him in equal measure, but Sylar isn't his brother. He isn't Nathan, despite what a few lingering memories may lead him to believe.

He thought being trapped with a murderer would be more tumultuous, but Sylar adapts to the solitude Peter forces on him and, for all intents and purposes, he keeps himself silent and out of Peter's way. That's what he wanted.

That should be what he wanted, anyway.

-

He shouldn't be thinking about Sylar.

No, Peter shouldn't be thinking of Sylar, not like _this_ ; not with a desperate fist around his cock and an endless city's worth of distance between them, his breath rattling against his teeth. He can’t tell if this is a dream, or a nightmare, but it feels real. It feels real enough when Peter chokes around the fingers in his mouth and breathes out an awful sob, terrified of his own need and vulnerability.

Sylar hasn't offered, but he'd let Peter have him, if only to repent. Peter knows that. That makes this so much uglier.

If he's in Sylar's head but Matt's the creator of the illusion, does that mean Sylar knows? Can he tell? Can he feel Peter's hammering pulse in that lonely apartment, right now?

Peter straightens up, wiping his hand shakily on his thigh. Not again, he vows.

Never again.

-

Peter hates him, hated him, wants to hate him. He wants to hate Sylar desperately; wants to hate him because things will fall apart if he doesn't, but hating a man drowning in remorse is no easy feat.

Some days, all Peter can see is the man that killed Nathan. Other days, Sylar looks so fucking small that Peter can't help but pity him.

"You haven't changed your mind about me, have you?"

"Of course not," Peter says, denying it fiercely, but his voice is strained. When did Sylar learn to see right through him?

"Interesting."

"How is that interesting?" Peter demands, but it comes out sounding frail.

Sylar peers at him over the top of his glasses. Funny; he almost looks harmless, knitted sweater and all.

Peter knows better than to fall for the ruse, but it's seeming less and less like an act every day. Why would Sylar bother to keep up a pretense? What does he have to gain? Peter hates him, either way. He has no reason to feign it.

Sylar smiles. "You hate me," he needlessly reminds them both. "You haven't gone a day without asserting how much you want me dead. But here you are," he says, gesturing at the immeasurable space between them, "Keeping me company. Quite willingly, I might add."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Peter mutters. He has no other response to that, because it's infuriating enough that he can't cling to his hatred; it's made all the worse by Sylar _knowing_ about it.

-

Sylar isn't the only occupant in this world wrestling with guilt. 

Peter wishes differently, but the thoughts are all-consuming. He looks at Sylar and wonders about the strength of his shoulders and the frailty of his wrists, the soft spaces between his hips and ribs. He wants to know if there's a single part of Sylar that is pliant.

He's a murderer. Peter is no better.

-

Peter returns to the room despite Sylar's warning.

He can't explain what it is that draws him there. Maybe it's because that awful room is the most tangible and visceral thing in this vast, abandoned city; it speaks of a part of Sylar that must feel remorse, or at the very least shame. 

The city is sleek and empty. The room is damaged and filled to bursting with horrors.

The body on the floor is easier to ignore, this time. Peter steps right across the corpse and braces himself for what he's about to find, walking towards the shrine.

It's macabre. It's grotesque. It's a window into Sylar's darkest dreams, his innermost agony and somehow that makes it bearable, knowing the horror isn't Peter's alone.

The walls bleed black. The floorboards groan painfully. Peter wonders if Sylar would feel it if he reached out and sunk his hand into the fleshy wall; Peter wonders if it would harm him.

"What are you hiding?" Peter whispers, because something is moving behind the wall, _in_ the wall, something violent and terrified. His nails scrape at the surface, digging in.

The wall pulses blood, like a heart that’s been punctured with a sharp needle. Peter recoils, trying to muffle his groan of disgust, but he keeps tearing at the flesh. He tears at it until it gives with a wet squelch, and out comes a body, tumbling to the floor.

Peter can feel his heart stutter in his chest. Nothing he's ever seen can compare to this. The sight of it pushes bile up his throat, and then he's throwing up, steadying himself against the reprehensible wall, gasping for breath through the tears.

The body is Sylar's, flayed of its skin. It hardly even looks human; exposed skull and lidless eyes, so abhorrent that Peter feels weak in the knees.

Is this how Sylar sees himself? Not as almighty, but wretched?

Peter runs from the room as fast as he can. He doesn't stop running until his knees give out and hit the asphalt.

-

"I saw it," Peter gasps, unable to keep the contempt and disgust out of his voice. "I saw that - that abomination."

Sylar pauses with his fingers curled loosely around Peter's wrist; the second Peter came stumbling back, Sylar was there to steady him and ease him back to his feet. "I see," he murmurs, but his eyes flash and harden, anticipating - what? A fight? "I told you not to go back there."

Peter snorts, his laughter coming out humorless. "I needed to know," he rasps, swallowing through the acid in his throat. "God, is that-"

"Is that what?" Sylar challenges, giving Peter his back. Not skinless, Peter reminds himself. Not a nightmare. He's real. "I don't think you want to know, Peter."

"I do," he insists; wanting is one thing. Peter _needs_ to know. He needs to understand, because nothing has made sense since he came here. Sylar owes him an explanation. 

"That room," Sylar says, "Is private. It belongs to me. You had no right to step inside."

Peter sinks down on the couch, trembling with exhaustion, with fear, but he still manages to find his voice. "There was no lock," he retorts, "You didn't try all that hard to keep me out."

"You were never meant to be here," Sylar nearly snarls. "I didn't anticipate-"

A heavy silence blankets them. Peter can't hear himself think over the rush of blood throughout his body, his hammering heart. He feels unmade.

Sylar is a still figure by the window, body softened in the harsh morning light. The sun came up an hour ago.

"I was scared," Peter admits, putting his head in his hands. "How can you live with that - with that-?"

Sylar's the one laughing without mirth, now, shaking his head. "I don't," he says. "I can't. I don't know how, Peter. It's for the best that Parkman locked me up in here."

His smile is thin, but when he offers it to Peter, he can't say that it looks fake. "It's a shame," Sylar murmurs, "That you had to become a prisoner here, too."

Prisoner. Peter used to feel that way. He can't pinpoint when exactly he started feeling differently, as if spending an eternity in Sylar's purgatory might not be the worst of fates. His brother's murderer deserves this, but that sentiment feels less and less true the more Peter tries to convince himself of it.

The fight is all but drained from him. He can feel exhausted tears pricking at his eyes.

Sylar is silent and unmoving; he approaches eventually, slowly, as if Peter's a wild animal he might spook. It isn't funny at all, but Peter finds himself laughing at the absurdity of being the most frightening thing in Sylar's head.

It's almost familiar, Sylar's hand around his wrist. "Hate me in the morning," he tells Peter firmly. "But get some rest, for now."

"What about you?" Peter asks, letting Sylar drag him to his feet and down the hall. He'd forgotten that Sylar's place of solitude only has one bed, and he's currently offering it to Peter. "Aren't you going to sleep?"

"I never do," Sylar says, surprising Peter with his honesty. "Not in this place. My head isn't very peaceful."

Peter doesn't know why it feels both bold and childish when he says "Why don't you just lie down, then? Close your eyes for a minute?"

While Sylar composes a reply, Peter slips beneath the sheets, fully dressed, far too tired to change. "Just for a minute," Sylar eventually agrees, his voice oddly reluctant.

Peter doesn't let his apprehension and his surprise show; once Sylar lays down with him, he's fast asleep in seconds.

-

The third time Peter visits the room, he approaches the skinless wretch and kneels down next to it.

He bends his forehead down, touching it to Sylar's, and says "I forgive you."

-

The next day, the wall comes down.


End file.
